1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to metal floors for the bodies of trucks, vans, trailers and the like.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
It has heretofore been common practice to employ wooden floors in the bodies of commercial motor vehicles such as trucks, vans, trailers and the like. Such floors, particularly in trailers, usually had the wooden planks longitudinally extending and supported on cross beams carried on longitudinally extending frames. The many variations in length to meet the demands of various purchasers required maintaining an inventory of different lengths of planks at great expense. Such planks have customarily been of lengths of 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24 and 26 feet. Further, suitable planks have become more and more difficult to obtain in North America and importation from Asia at great expense has become necessary.
It has been proposed to provide, in trucks and freight cars, metal planks longitudinally disposed, as shown in the U.S. Pats. to Wing, No. 2,478,993; Fenske, No. 2,667,243; Curell, No. 2,753,018; Seim, No. 2,955,687; Muir, No. 3,080,021; and Benninger et al., No. 3,909,059 but such longitudinally disposed planks have various shortcomings, including the tendency to bend due to localized loads and transmission of the bending effect to other lengthwise locations with increased stress on the fastenings at such locations.
The use of transverse metal planks for floors of trucks and railway cars is shown in the U.S. Pats. to Hansen, No. 2,681,715; Shaver, No. 2,900,055; Doerr, No. 2,907,417; Black, No. 3,269,072; Oakley, No. 3,026,821; and Glaser et al., No. 3,187,853.
The mode of securing the planks together or to the supports as shown by Shaver, Doerr, Black, Oakley and Glasser et al. is not entirely reliable and greatly increases the cost of assembling the components.
In Hansen, U.S. Pat. No. 2,681,715 steel boards are employed with the planks welded to each other and the assembly held to longitudinal supports by clamps. The disposition of the longitudinal supports, while suitable for freight cars and other metal flooring would not be suitable for truck bodies having a conventional spaced pair of longitudinal beams forming part of the truck chassis. The clamps in Hansen are limited in length by the width of the boards. In the present invention aluminum boards are used which do not require welding, which boards have stiffeners and which are supported by rails parallel to the boards and clamped to such rails, the assembly being supported on and secured to longitudinal I-beams forming part of the truck body which are in turn secured to the longitudinal channels of the chassis.